After her husband died in a crash in 1987, Karen “Kelly” Guckian didn't know what to do with herself. She sold crafts and handiwork, but realized that wouldn't sustain her financially, said her mother, Joyce Ward.

So she signed up at a temporary employment agency, which led to work at the San Antonio Express-News filing photographs in the paper's archives, which were stored in a hot, deserted area.

“She was being way underutilized,” said Kathy Foley, who'd just been hired as editor of news research. “When I realized how talented she was, as soon as I possibly could I got her into the newsroom so we could start using her talents.”

Guckian died Thursday of pancreatic cancer. She was 54.

Raised in a military family that moved frequently, Guckian “was a pretty shy little girl, very quiet,” her mother said. “She always kept her things organized, did her work well, got good grades. But when she got into high school and college, she blossomed like a rose.”

She sang in choir, participating in contests and traveling around Texas with her brother Steve Ward performing in their group New Joy. She also discovered computers. “She latched on to the technology and couldn't learn enough about it,” her mother said.

Her father, Gil Ward, who worked for Hewlett-Packard, recalled bringing a few old computers home at Christmas one year. “She delved into those computers the whole time while the rest of the family was doing Christmas,” he said. “She just ate it up.”

Guckian met Roger Guckian in 1982, and after a “whirlwind” courtship, they married.

“She called me up one day and said, 'Guess what I did on my lunch hour?'” her mother recalled.

After her husband's death, she wasn't interested in romance, Gil Ward said.

She immersed herself in her work, and, “even with no library training, she quickly learned to do research and how to respond when people asked questions,” Foley said. “She was a natural information specialist; her skills became very sophisticated.”

Guckian also had the patience and personality to help fellow employees.

“Being a newsroom researcher can sometimes be a lot like being a kindergarten teacher,” Express-News reporter John MacCormack said. She “had a comforting quality that made the oddest of requests, even on deadline, seem perfectly reasonable; you never felt like an idiot when you went to her for help.”

Guckian moved to Georgia in 2012 to be closer to her aging parents, working as a computer-assisted reporting specialist, working on investigative reporting at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“She tried and tried to get us to come back to San Antonio,” Gilbert Ward said. “We didn't do it ... so she finally decided to move up here.”

mheidbrink@express-news.net

Correction: This story has been updated. Guckian was a computer-assisted reporting specialist, working on investigative reporting working at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.